that Mr. Byles'
sudden resignation was largely due to an engineering feat of Peter's,
who had many outrages to avenge, and succeeded in attaching no less
than three squibs to the good man's desk; but it is likely that an
exhortation from Bulldog, overheard by the delighted school, had its due
effect.

"Humanity or no humanity, my man, it's no peppermint drops nor pats on
the head that'll rule Muirtown birkies; their fathers were brought up on
the stick, and the stick'll make the sons men. If ye'll take my advice,
Mr. Byles, adverteese for a situation in a lassies' school. Ye're ower
dainty for Muirtown Seminary."

This was not a charge which his worst enemy could bring against Mr.
Dugald MacKinnon, and because he was the very opposite--a most
unflinching, resolute, iron man--he engraved himself on the hearts of
three generations of Muirtown men. They were a dour, hard-headed,
enterprising lot--a blend from the upland braes of Drumtochty and the
stiff carse of Gowrie and the Celts of Lock Tay, with some good south
country stuff--and there are not many big cities on either side of the
Atlantic where two or three Muirtown men cannot this day be found. They
always carry in their hearts the "Fair City"--which lieth in a basin
among the hills, beside the clean, swift-running river, like a Scots
Florence; and they grow almost eloquent when they start upon their home,
but the terminus of recollection is ever the same. When they have
dallied with the swimming in the Tay, and the climbing of the hill which
looks down on the fair plain as far as Dundee, and the golf on the
meadows, and the mighty snow fights in days where there were men (that
is, boys) in the land, and memory is fairly awake, some one suddenly
says, "Bulldog." "Ah!" cries another, with long-drawn pleasure, as one
tasting a delicate liquor; and "Bulldog," repeats the third, as if a
world of joy lay in the word. They rest for a minute, bracing
themselves, and then conversation really begins, and being excited, they
drop into the Scots tongue.

"Man," hurries in the first, "a' see him stannin' at his desk in the
mornin' watchin' the laddies comin' in ower the top o' his spectacles,
an' juist considerin' wha wud be the better o' a bit thrashin' that
day."

"Sax feet high gin he wes an inch," bursts in the second, "an' as
straight as a rush, though a'm thinkin' he wes seventy, or maybe eighty,
some threipit (insisted) he was near ninety; an' the een o' him--div y